2006/12/01 by Stephen R. Williams, Denis J. Evans, Emil Mittag
Chemical Engineering · Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics #Phase Equilibria and Thermodynamics #Rheology and Fluid Dynamics Studies #cond-mat.stat-mech
paper · pdf · doi:10.1016/j.crhy.2007.05.007
published as Comptes Rendus Physique 8 (2007) 620-624 · 5 pages 2 figures
arxiv created 2006/12/01 · openalex publication_date 2007/06/01 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Linear irreversible thermodynamics asserts that the instantaneous local spontaneous entropy production is always nonnegative. However, for a viscoelastic fluid this is not always the case. Given the fundamental status of the Second Law, this presents a problem. We provide a new rigorous derivation of the Second Law, which is valid for the appropriately time averaged entropy production allowing the instantaneous entropy production to be negative for short intervals of time. We show that time averages (rather than instantaneous values) of the entropy production are nonnegative. We illustrate this using molecular dynamics simulations of oscillatory shear.